Skip the Memes, Joe. Here’s How a Presidential TikTok Account Should Look.

Earlier this month, on Super Bowl Sunday, President Joe Biden debuted his TikTok account, @bidenhq. It was a necessary move from a campaign standpoint that nonetheless prompted confusion among those of us who recall how close his administration veered toward banning the popular social media platform in the U.S.

In fact, it was just last March that Biden presented TikTok’s Chinese parent company ByteDance with an ultimatum: divest ownership or face a nationwide ban. Less than a year later, ByteDance still owns TikTok—and the ban threat has virtually dissipated. Now we have official presidential videos captioned “lol hey guys” and sprinkled with Dark Brandon allusions, even though the Biden administration has said there are no changes regarding its concerns over the security of the app.

At a time when young voters are increasingly frustrated with the president and the current state of government, the calculus of joining TikTok appears to be a charm offensive concocted to court Gen Z voters. It’s certainly not dumb (though it may be a little late).

But the approach is spotty, at best.

The account largely aims to animate oft-repeated Biden talking points with humor. In one meme, the campaign draws a line (literally) to demarcate where Biden and Trump stand on hot-button issues including abortion, student loan forgiveness … and selling “bootleg off-white sneakers”? (The latter was a quip at Trump taking the stage at Sneaker Con to introduce a line of gold high-top sneakers.)

Another meme was deployed when the campaign addressed an X post from Rep. Jim Jordan where he doubled down on calling the Biden family corrupt. (This came after the key witness that Republicans had been holding up as a “whistleblower” on the Bidens’ crimes turned out to be a serial liar who also possibly has connections to Russian intelligence.)

In the TikTok video, captioned “keep yapping man,” a screenshot of Jordan’s (extremely long) screed is scrolled through at breakneck pace. For those who didn’t register the dismissal, a second slide included text messages with the words: “I ain’t reading all that/ I’m happy for u tho/ or sorry that happened.” (The meme catalog “Know Your Meme” classifies this 2019 meme as “part of a series on tl;dr.”)

There is, however, a palpable disconnect between the jest shrouding the account in these posts and the reception evident in the comment sections. Many of the posts have been flooded with comments alluding to the rising death toll in Gaza, as well as general criticism of Biden’s presidency. One particularly haunting response, as documented by John Herrman at New York magazine, reads simply: “i can’t afford gas or rent.”

Internet humor should not, even in the best of times, be a game our octogenarian president is trying to win. His team doesn’t actually need to adopt the language of Gen Z or millenial nonchalance (“weird flex”) because the president is never going to appear relatable anyway. (And he doesn’t need to be relatable; he’s the president.) But also, at a time when so many young people are desperate for change, it comes off as flippant or incredibly out of touch.

Still, Biden could find relative success on the app if his team leans into showing what kind of change he can and has made in the lives of Americans.

In one video with over 1.6 million views, Biden eats takeout from Southern fast-food chain Cook Out with a former school principal named Eric Fitts and Fitts’ two sons, Carter and Christian. Fitts narrates the video, saying the president paid them a visit because he was a recipient of a public service student loan forgiveness program.

“I had over $90,000 erased,” Fitts said. “This has been a game-changer for me and how I can provide for my boys.” As he spoke of his children, the video panned across family portraits showing his sons playing sports when they were younger.

In the video, President Biden sits with the family at their table, eating the fast food (a hamburger with a chocolate milkshake, according to Fitts) and asking questions of Fitts’ sons, while in turn offering his own anecdotes. It would not be far-fetched to assume that the video was scripted or targeted—or pandering, as some TikTok users commented in stitched videos—to Black voters.

But it is not a bad strategy: Find someone whose life has been improved by one of Biden’s policies or legislative wins and have the president connect with them interpersonally. Let the cameras capture the occasion. Post it on TikTok. For a politician who has branded himself as a “family guy,” the video certainly evokes a sentimental and nostalgic quality. Biden probably isn’t going to many people’s homes to eat burgers and fries, so seeing him do it is actually kind of interesting.

The internet is a fickle place. A silly post could just as soon garner devotion and admiration from the public as sour public opinion. But a tried-and-true method of interacting with everyday Americans, and showing why it’s important to fight for them, is going to be a lot more timeless—and well received by young people—than a meme format with the caption “lol.” If Biden wants to really use the platform to reach younger voters, this is the key.